Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Our publication ethics and publication malpractice statement is based on adherence to:

We are also a contributor to the THINK-CHECK-SUBMIT initiative, and responsible for its adaptation into Greek and Albanian. Please refer to our Principals of Transparency Checklist for further details.

Ethics

1. Research involving human subjects
All research submitted for publication in Tobacco Prevention and Cessation , must have been carried out within an appropriate ethics framework. Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the WMA Declaration of Helsinki (as revised in 2013), and as per Good Clinical Practice.
For all research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study should be obtained from participants or their guardians in the case of children. Identifying information of any form will not be published unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or guardian) gives written informed consent on its publication. Should a manuscript report on research that provides any material that should need informed consent then an ad hoc "Statement of Informed consent" will be published in the PDF of the article alongside the ICMJE Conflict of Interest statement in the final published manuscript.

2. Research involving animal subjects
When reporting on experiments on animals the authors should indicate which institutional and national standards for care and use of laboratory animals were followed.

3. Ethics and Institutional approval
All research must have been approved by an appropriate research ethics committee or institutional review board (IRB). The Editors will seek assurances that all research has been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and ethics approval numbers and acceptance date will be requested.

4. Identification and handling of allegations of research misconduct
Both the publishers and the Editors of the journal take affirmative action to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. All authors are requested to complete and upload ICMJE conflict of interest forms. All manuscripts undergo Ithenticate plagiarism detection after each round of peer review. In the event that the journal's publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in their journal - COPE's guidelines will be followed when dealing with allegations.

5. Corrections & Retractions
Should authors or reviewers identify an error in a manuscript, a correction letter will be published indicating where the mistakes were made, while the original source will be immediately corrected. In general, the COPE Guidelines for Retracting Articles are followed in this case. When faced with suspected misconduct the editors are advised to follow the relevant COPE Flowcharts. Readers may also comment on published manuscripts through the submission of a letter to the editor.

6. Appeals
If any authors are unhappy with the decision on their article they may appeal to the Editorial Office giving a reason why they feel the decision was incorrect. Any appeal will be reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief and one more editor with expertise on the topic and a final decision will be made. Please note that authors may only appeal once.

7. Editorial Freedom
The Editor-in-Chief has full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal. The Editor-in-Chief is supported by expert international editorial boards comprising individuals with relevant research, academic and or policy expertise. Together they make decisions on the validity and integrity of the submitted manuscripts in light of the journal's aim and scope. The Editorial board's composition is regularly reviewed, while clear guidance to editorial board members about their expected functions and duties is provided. The editorial board is also frequently updated on publication ethics and journal strategic development. The publisher is not involved in the manuscript decision-making process.

Peer Review and Manuscript Handling Process

Peer review is the critical assessment of manuscripts. All articles submitted to Tobacco Prevention and Cessation undergo double-blind peer review. Any manuscripts received for review are and must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers are requested to report on the ethical aspects of the manuscript they are allocated to review and are requested to report also on the novelty, the impact, the statistical analysis, references and potential conflicts of interest. The Editorial Office reserves the right to handle the peer review process.

1. Plagiarism
Upon receipt of the submission, the manuscript is checked using the plagiarism identification software iTHENTICATE and the report is provided to the handling editor to assess within the initial internal review process.
European Publishing investigates into all cases of publication misconduct and as a member of CrossCheck’s plagiarism detection initiative it uses plagiarism detection software. The software checks submissions against millions of published research papers, documents on the web, and other relevant sources. If plagiarism or misconduct is found at the time of submission the manuscript is rejected immediately. Should for some reason plagiarism or misconduct be identified after publication, the case will be assessed and if needed immediate actions will be taken, including but not limited to the retraction of the article, publication of a retraction notice, etc.

2. Initial Internal Review
Assigned editorial board members and handling editors make an initial decision on the manuscript, based on the manuscript's content, novelty, sample size, manuscript preparation and quality in light of the other manuscripts currently under peer review. At this stage, the journal may either send the manuscript out for double-blind peer review, may reject the manuscript without peer review or may send the manuscript back to authors for adjustment before it is evaluated again.

3. Double-Blind Peer Review
Should the manuscript pass this initial phase of the internal review, external double-blind peer reviewing is then performed. Two external peer reviewers are invited to provide their opinion on the manuscript. These two external peer review reports are then evaluated by a member of the editorial board or/and the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) who then makes a decision on the manuscript. In all cases, the manuscript is reviewed by at least one member of the editorial board members and the EIC.

4. External and Internal Review
Letters to the Editor and Editorials are peer-reviewed internally. All other article types are externally peer-reviewed.

5. Provenance and Peer Review
All published manuscripts have a specific provenance and peer review tab (commissioned vs non-commissioned; internally vs externally peer-reviewed) within the published article.

6. Articles submitted by Editorial Board Members
When members of the Editorial Board submit articles to the journal, they do not participate in the peer-review process or in the acceptance of the article, and they do not have access to any information regarding its review. The responsibility for overseeing the review process is completely delegated to the handling editor of the journal. A disclaimer will be issued if an article is accepted for publication.

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